The present disclosure relates to a battery explosion prevention apparatus, a battery pack, and a method for operating the same, and more particularly, to a battery explosion prevention apparatus, in which a secondary battery cell is punched to discharge an electrolyte therein when a temperature of the secondary battery cell is detected to a temperature greater than a set critical temperature, a battery pack, and a method for operating the same.
In recent years, as technical development and demand on electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, power storage devices, and uninterruptible power supplies increase, demand of secondary batteries as energy sources is rapidly increasing. Particularly, battery packs used in electric vehicles or hybrid vehicles are high-output large-capacity secondary batteries, and many studies on the battery packs are being conducted.
Particularly, since lithium secondary batteries have higher energy density per unit weight and are quickly chargeable when compared to different kinds of existing secondary batteries such as lead-acid batteries, nickel-cadmium batteries, nickel-hydrogen batteries, nickel-zinc batteries, and the like, the increase in use thereof is actively proceeding.
Such a lithium secondary battery has an operating voltage of 3.6V or more and may be used as power sources for portable electronic devices or used for electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, power tools, electric bicycles, power storage devices, uninterruptible power supplies, and the like, in which a plurality of batteries are connected in series or in parallel to each other, and high output is required.
When power is generated from the battery pack, heat is generated due to electrochemical reaction. Here, if the heat remains in the cell within the battery pack, the cell increases in temperature to deteriorate operation conditions of the cell and thereby to deteriorate power generation efficiency, as well as, an internal pressure of the sealed pack increases by the generated heat to increase in a risk of explosion. Thus, it is one of the important tasks to secure safety.
In accordance with the related art, a method for forcibly cutting off the power to prevent the battery pack from being exploded by an increase in temperature due to the use of the battery pack has been used. Although this method prevents the temperature of the battery pack from increasing no longer by immediately cutting off the power, there has been a limitation that the temperature remaining in the battery pack has a possibility of the explosion of the battery pack.